It's difficult to comment on this episode as it plays out in a fairly standard fashion, and you basically just have to watch and have the information spoon-fed to you as you go.

At the end of the day, this is a fairly formulaic whodunit story with some good character development for Chakotay.

Unfortunately, with whodunit stories, whilst it's perfectly normal to conceal a certain amount of information to the audience, the audience can be left too far behind otherwise it does become an entirely passive experience where you're left waiting for the next clue to be revealed by a character's exposition.

'State of Flux' suffers a bit from this where there's a misbalance between the clues given, and the amount of exposition. There's too much withheld which results in a huge amount of expository explanation at the end where you can't help but feel the writers are snickering to themselves "look how clever our plot is! *nyuck nyuck*"

It just makes the episode a little on the boring side, and for a big event episode, this shouldn't be the case.

This episode starts off with, HARRY KIM IN PERIL! This is becoming a little too frequent to be a coincidence I feel.

And we have another holdeck drama. Whilst this is a first for Voyager, it's not a first for Star Trek and by now, this dilemma is getting REALLY old and the novelty is entirely worn off.

One of the biggest issues with holodeck peril is the audience can't help but ask "WHY DON'T THEY JUST TURN IT OFF??". Of course, there's a lengthy technobabble explanation as to how Kim, Paris and Tuvok's molecular structure is caught up in this holo energy malarky. The explanation is pretty much akin to "WEEEOOOOO MAGIC!"

Making this a Doctor episode almost saves it and although the Danish vikings are corny as hell, I find them amusing and it feels as though the Doc is stuck in a mid-90's roleplaying computer game. But at the end of the day, it's all really lame.

The Doctor caring about Freya dying is just bizarre by the way. I can perfectly understand the Doctor losing a holodeck personality akin to a human losing someone who is flesh and blood. But the Doctor is DIFFERENT to the holodeck characters. He is a sentient being who has become more than the sum of his parts. Freya is a fictional character whom can be recreated at a whim.

Harry Kim Horror Count stands at 3 for being absorbed by holodeck Beowulf energy, and I'll also note Garrett Wang's almost total absence from this entire episode (he gets one line at the end).

I get the impression this episode cops a lot of a flack for being terrible, but I don't mind it. It's hardly great though.

The episode opens with Janeway playing in some Victorian period holodeck piece and I have to say, this is slightly alienating to me. I don't like literature of this setting, and it's also in stark contrast to the various past times of the previous captains, most of which I could get on board with.

I noticed in Cathexis, although it's been a problem for most of the season, that the editing has been terrible. Non-dramatic beats are used as act-breaks and other dramatic moments are just ploughed straight through. However, some background reading reveals that VOY was being restructured around a five act layout (from the old four act format) and this was causing difficulties for the entire production crew, so that explains that.

It causes logic errors to crop up often though, like Kes magically knowing about the alien prescence on the ship which had just been discussed for the first time in sickbay about 15 seconds earlier - a discussion she wasn't present for at all.

Neelix is particularly intolerable this episode as he rages about everything he doesn't understand (which in this episode, is everything).

This episode is really quite strange, but I kind of like it. The crew being forcibly turned against eachother is pretty cool and creates some solid dramatic tension. Tuvok being the real bad guy all along as fairly obvious the whole time unfortunately though.

I get the impression this episode cops a lot of a flack for being terrible, but I don't mind it. It's hardly great though.

The episode opens with Janeway playing in some Victorian period holodeck piece and I have to say, this is slightly alienating to me. I don't like literature of this setting, and it's also in stark contrast to the various past times of the previous captains, most of which I could get on board with.

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I wouldn't like Victorian literature either if all of it were actually that corny and awful as VOY makes it look. It's like a cheap third rate knockoff of Victorian literature... or a deliberate parody. Janeway's taste in holoprograms is very bad.

^^ I like "Jane Austin" type films and I didn't think this was horribly done... Victorian lit has a little corn to it, I mean It was a holonovel and a "deliberate parody".
I felt is was a stereotypical way a middle aged woman would spend her free time and it made me smile the first time i saw it. Ok, fine...I giggled.
I get what you mean about alienating because I could never get into Sisko's baseball obsession...
However they dont do much more with this holoprogram... Maybe you'll like Da Vinci.

^^ I like "Jane Austin" type films and I didn't think this was horribly done... Victorian lit has a little corn to it, I mean It was a holonovel and a "deliberate parody".
I felt is was a stereotypical way a middle aged woman would spend her free time and it made me smile the first time i saw it. Ok, fine...I giggled.
I get what you mean about alienating because I could never get into Sisko's baseball obsession...
However they dont do much more with this holoprogram... Maybe you'll like Da Vinci.

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I don't want to comment on episodes I haven't technically rewatched yet, but what I don't like about this Victorian-era literature is that it's grounded in a very socially oppressive era of Earth history, filled with traditional gender roles and outdated stereotypes. I find this detracts from Janeway as it would better if she was shown enjoying something more...progressive? So yes, I do like the Da Vinci stuff better than this. Although it would have been nicer if she'd been been given a female historical figure/role model to interact with like Marie Curie (which would have augmented her scientific background nicely).

Also re: Sisko + baseball. Pretty much the only reason that cliqued with me is that I love Cricket and Baseball is the closest thing Americans have to the game. :P

I would've hated if he'd been into Gridiron or Water Polo (lol Archer).

Now my opinion on this episode is going to be completely biased positively because I just love B'Elanna Torres. Her struggles to deal with cultural differences and her (angry) emotionalism are concepts that resonate with me very strongly. So when an episode comes along that largely deals with these issues, I am going to be very receptive.

Objectively however, this is a good episode. You get to learn plenty about Torres and this a good growth episode for her as despite how much she wanted to fit in, she can't be anything except the person that she is.

The Vidiians get a pretty one-dimensional showing this episode, but they're a cool villain and I enjoy them being used to good effect at least. The doctor taking Durst's face is still shocking every time I see it and adds to the mood/atmosphere of the episode.

It's disappointing nothing is done about freeing these people in the prison but I guess that's what happens when you only have ~42 minutes to tell a story. Overall though, great episode.

Re: the people left in prison, I think this is a good example at the difference between TNG and the Flagship of the Federation, and VOY with just one little ship against the universe. Janeway knows she has to pick her battles carefully, and there was no way she was going to be able to free those people so she didn't even try.

The end of the show also reinforces the established relationship between C/T. In later years one would expect to see Captain Janeway come in to comfort the wounded officer, but here we see BLT's former Captain doing the honours. The ep's best line, however, was also the best example of Chak falling down on his job as her counselor.

TORRES: I know. I came to admire a lot of things about her. Her strength, her bravery. I guess I just have to accept the fact that I’ll spend the rest of my life fighting with her.

Chak just nodded and walked away when she said this.

I would have foreseen Janeway, on the other hand, saying this to her Chief Engineer.

Janeway: Maybe that's what she was trying to tell you when she died. She's always been there, will always be there at your side, fighting with you, B'Elanna. She's never been fighting against you.

Yeah, I considered how a potential rescue could have played out and including it would have either been a unrealistic farce and detracted from the A story or become the focus of the story when it didn't need to be, so I'm glad that plot line wasn't explored.

It would have been nice if there'd been just a little 20 second scene where one of the bridge officers postulates a rescue attempt and Janeway says if this were the Alpha Quadrant of course, but in the DQ, things are different. It would've addressed the absence of this being explored in the episode, and simultaneous stopped the issue in it's tracks.

You can't really spoil Voyager for me, I have seen all of it during it's original air-date and the occasional airing on Foxtel. What this is, is an objective, chronologically correct revisit so I can get a fresh perspective on the show, rather than just catching random episodes here and there which doesn't always paint the show in it's best light.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE "Prototype" from start to finish for all the J/Torres in the show.

In the beginning, where the Captain is getting down and dirty with B'Elanna as they try to ressurrect the android, to the middle where Janeway gives her foster daughter her patented Mama Bear growl ( "Lieutenant!" ) over the comm system when she learns Torres is cooperating with her kidnappers (to save Voyager! ).... to the end where Mama comes to empathize with Torres in the mess hall.

Sigh.

I love J/T just as much as I love J/7, and as many of you realize by now,